Ever heard of Jason Calacanis? Well he is a well-known blogging personality who can be rather outrageous sometimes, in fact he recently became the first A-List blogger to ‘officially‘ retire from blogging.
This Friday he sent out his latest email detailing ‘how to demo your startup or idea to potential investors’. Its a great newsletter and we have been given permission to publish it in full but since it was 2,300+ words we decided to publish just quotes on TechWinter with some tweaks of our own. We provide a link at the the bottom of this post for those who want to read the full version as well.
Killer ideas can not wait to show themselves off!
Much of his email is ‘common sense’ but if you drive a car then you know how often this can be absent and in business this is no different. In his email he makes 10 points of which we will list and make our own tweaks.
- Show your product within the first 60 seconds
- The best products take less than five minutes to demo
- Leave people wanting more.
- Talk about what you’ve done, not what you’re going to do.
- Understand your competitive landscape–current and historical.
- Short answers are best.
- PowerPoint bullet slides are death
- How to use this new device called the phone.
- How to handle questions you don’t know the answer to
- Always confirm the time of your meeting/call, and always be 15 minutes early.
Jason makes an excellent point here, “Folks who have a kick-ass product don’t spend five or ten minutes “setting the stage” or “giving the background.” Folks with killer products CAN’T WAIT to show you their product.”
To true I remember being in both situations showing off and talking about something out of obligation rather than passion and it just didn’t work for me. Your ability to push through this emotional issue with success is rare so I wouldn’t count on it.
Jason believes in a succint presentation that is brief and to the point. Apparently some entrepreneurs have the impression that a demo is long and drawn out. This is not a High School or University presentation where prolonged diatribe is valued. Your presentation should be a succinct and give your audience a clear picture of your service if possible in a sentence or two at the outset of the presentation e.g “Here’s a box, type something in and you get a huge reward.” Can you guess which company Jason would suggest such as such an example….Google.
Duh! As George Constanza always says ‘Leave on a high note’. Like many expressions in life following them in a timely manner or appropriately is harder than they seem on the surface and this one is no different. Be careful leaving too much to their imagination or you may find out later they lack that imagination and missed an opportunity. Like all things feel the situation out and be conscientious of the tone and attitude of your audience.
“Who cares what you’re going to bolt on to your startup? What really
matters is the core functionality of your startup.”
100% I agree you have no idea how many times entrepreneurs have told me they have a me-too product and quickly went on to point out how they could execute this or that item faster but without any real sense of what their CORE product strategy would be, it was just copy copy copy and add bells and whistles faster.
Hah, this one is great and I have a personal pet peeve about this one and that is so many entrepreneurs have no real plan and in any thought out business plan there is always an analysis of your competitive landscape.
“When I pitched the idea for Weblogs, Inc. to Mark Cuban, Yossi Vardi and Jeff Bezos, I understood all the niche email marketing and newsletter companies from the early and mid-nineties cold. I
researched why they worked and why they failed, and I knew which ones were sold and bought and by whom. When I pitched Mahalo to Sequoia Capital, I knew the history of human-powered search and directories from DMOZ to Yahoo Directory to LookSmart.”
Jason says this is something he needs to work on and I have to agree I am a fast, detailed talker too and I have to remind myself of this on a daily basis never mind during important meetings and presentations. That being said I am sorted during presentations and meetings so if I can do it, so can you, no excuses.
GOD HELP US! Save me from the bullet points on your slides. Listen if you have bullet points they better be for my benefit because I hate when guys read their bullet points. Ever walk into an electronics store and ask the sales guy a simple question and they proceed to look on the product box for the answer? Annoying isn’t it? Well don’t be that guy, know your information cold.
This one is a small point but can be really relevant if you leave live in North America as Jason brought up the problem where calls get dropped and call quality on mobiles/cell phones can be problematic. If this is the case for your area of the world than keep in mind that if your call is disconnected because you were too lazy to make yourself physically available or find a landline than you probably got a huge black X next to your name. Can I trust you with my money if you can’t even manage a phone call?
If you don’t know, whatever you do, don’t pretend you DO YOU KNOW. Check out the link to Jason’s letter on our Posterous site for all his tips on this point. Highly recommended if you need help here.
Common sense, need I say more?
*Anything with “” around it are directly taken from Jason Calacanis’s newsletter.
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